


魔女

by Felle_DesignWorks (Felle)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-02-28 13:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18757579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felle/pseuds/Felle_DesignWorks
Summary: After stealing Futaba's heart, conventional medical knowledge fails to help her out of her torpor, forcing Ren to seek out more…mystical methods in the forest nearby.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious, the title is pronounced “majo,” and the setting is some indeterminate point in the Sengoku period. I'll be adding the subsequent chapters as I write them and adjust the rating and tags accordingly.

Ren stepped over an unearthed tree root and wondered if it was the same root he had seen ten minutes before, gnarled in the same spots with the same twists, turns, and scratches running along the length of it. He couldn’t be going in circles, he had a better sense of direction than that…didn’t he?

But then, nothing gave him the impression that this was a normal forest.

He sat at the base of the tree with the exposed roots and wiped some sweat from his brow. The day was sweltering, even with the cover from the sun and his lightest outfit. His legs burned from the terrain, and the thought that he was going in a loop was almost infuriating. Ren looked up and tried to spy the sun’s position through the leaves. It had to be past midday by now, making it more than six hours from when he set out at dawn. The thought that he could be losing an entire day when there was no shortage of matters demanding his attention wasn’t a pleasant one, even if he was sure that Makoto could handle anything that came up in his stead.

Despite the sweat there, the little hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Ren glanced around and saw the swish of white and russet fur behind one of the trees nearby. He watched a little while longer, but its owner didn’t appear anywhere in the undergrowth. Foxes in a forest were no great peculiarity in the region, but it surprised him to see one get so close to him. They were cautious, nervous creatures that liked to keep their distance. And yet, he had seen a few such flashes since he entered the forest that morning, with something telling him that it was the same fox each time.

The lingering feeling of being watched even after it vanished did nothing to put him at ease, either.

Ren shook his head clear and got back to his feet. He wasn’t here to look at the wildlife. No, he was here to…to…

“Where’d the path go?”

He would have sworn all the way across the Kanto plain that there had been a footpath, albeit overgrown, that he was following. Ren looked around the tree where he had sat down, but there was only grass as far as he could see. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. It was one thing to have to go back with nothing to show for his excursion, but not being able to find his way back at all was a much more serious problem. Either his eyes had been playing tricks on him since he entered the forest, or there were other forces at work. The misplaced confidence at that thought was something, at least. He took a small bundle from his obi and unwrapped the nori he had packed before dawn to pop a piece into his mouth before he started walking again, taking a guess at what he thought was the right direction.

Ren was halfway through his meager lunch when something cracked the twigs and grass behind him. When he looked over his shoulder, a fox with russet fur dotted with white on its tail and legs was staring at him. He froze, and the fox did as well, apart from its tail swishing slowly behind it.

“All right…”

The fox was looking right at him, never breaking eye contact as it sat on its haunches and raised its head expectantly. Ren turned a piece of nori over in his hand. “Are you hungry? Do foxes even like seaweed? I’m not sure where they’d get it,” he said under his breath, but leaned down and offered one of the smaller bits anyway. It sniffed at the food for a moment before snapping it up and swallowing it whole. Ren arched an eyebrow. “You’re not a regular fox, are you?”

It stood up and trotted ahead of him as a response, only stopping to look over its shoulder at him and beckon with one stamping foot. Ren shrugged and started following. It wasn’t as if he could get lost any worse than he already was. And the fox seemed very confident about where it was going, stopping only once to mark a tree before continuing on some unseen course that ran oddly straight. No one would ever believe him if he tried to explain this, nor could Ren blame anyone for balking at a recount of it.

The air seemed to cool as they went on, with the heat easing away until it felt more like spring than summer. Some of the sunlight beating down through the leaves abated as well, though he discounted that as the day moving closer to sunset. At the very least, he didn’t seem to be passing by the same set of trees over and over.

Before long, the fox led Ren between two massive oak trees that had their trunks bent toward one another to form a crude arch. It stopped right in front of the threshold and sat primly with another expectant look thrown his way. Ren waited to see if it would continue on, but it only sat, waiting for him. Well. This was hardly the strangest thing he’d ever done. He went up next to the fox, took a long breath, and stepped forward.

An icy chill ran over the air, more appropriate for a windswept mountainside than a forest in summer, before the temperature recovered and settled at a pleasant warmth. Ren looked around. Everything still looked right, though now it was more of a clearing rather than an extension of the forest. Instead of trees, there were rows of flowering bushes and lines of loamy soil between them, where a number of different plants were growing. Behind him, a much larger fox than before was coming through the arch, beyond which was a clear footpath where they had been walking. The fox, now as big as a well-fed dog, jerked its head forward, toward a small estate at the other end of the garden.

The estate’s door slid open as soon as Ren got up onto the engawa, and he stopped mid-step in surprise. On the other side of the door was a woman about half a head shorter than him, wearing a kimono embroidered with silhouettes of butterflies that was almost as white as her snow-pale skin. She cocked her head, making her short bob of dark hair drift to one side while she examined him. Bright brown eyes caught his, and his words smothered in his throat. The fox hopped up behind Ren and pushed past him to go into the estate.

“…yes? Can I help you?” she asked.

Ren shook his head clear and took a step back so he could bow. “Ah, good afternoon to you, my name is Amamiya Ren,” he said, struggling not to trip over his words as he straightened up.

“Amamiya- _kun_ ,” the woman repeated as she tucked her hands into her wide sleeves. She clicked her tongue, and the fox loped deeper into the estate, tail swishing behind it. “No one’s able to stumble on this place by accident, so I assume you know where you are?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

Despite being shorter than him, the woman seemed to loom over Ren, diminishing his presence until it was almost completely subsumed within hers. His heart seemed to hammer in his chest. This was silly, he hadn’t been nearly this unnerved when crossing paths with any of the people keeping Kyoto in a stranglehold. Of course, none of them had been hauntingly beautiful women.

“And you know what I am?” she asked, drawing one hand from her sleeve. In her palm was a pinprick of blue fire that grew to the size of a persimmon bulb, and Ren stood as still as he could as she reached toward his shoulder and let it dance around his head, cold heat brushing at his throat and ears. She added two more pinpricks so there were three flames swirling around his head, barely touching at his skin, growing warmer and warmer until a sliver of pain flashed at his chin. Still, Ren kept still.

“I think I have a good idea…”

The witch snapped her fingers, and the heat was gone in an instant. A trio of brilliant blue butterflies drifted away from his head and disappeared within her sleeve. “Good, then we don’t have to talk around it. You can call me Takemi. Come inside, I’ll make tea and you can tell me why you came all this way into my forest.”

It seemed terribly bold of her to lay claim to the entire forest, but he wasn’t there to argue with her. Ren stepped out of his shoes and followed Takemi through the front room of her home, where the faint smell of ground herbs seemed to hang over everything. He could swear the strings of a shamisen were being plucked nearby, but the sound wasn’t strong enough to isolate over their footsteps. Takemi led him into a small reception room, where the fox was laying in front of a brazier, watching a teapot hanging over the lit coals. “I hope it’s all right that I offered your fox some of my nori,” Ren said as he sat at the low table in the room’s center.

“Oh, is that it? I wondered why he brought a strange man home. You’ll just go to anyone offering a treat, won’t you, you little glutton?”

The fox’s tail swished over the floor. He sat up and took the teapot’s handle in his teeth to bring over to Takemi, who was portioning tea leaves into two cups at the cabinet opposite the door. “Is it done? Give it here.”

She brought the cups to the table and sat across from Ren, who carefully accepted his cup. It felt so fragile in his hands, thin white porcelain with gold designs on the interior and exterior. “Thank you very much,” he said, and took a sip. It was rather strong for his taste.

Takemi drained her cup in one smooth motion and set it down. “Now then, to what do I owe this visit? A witch in the woods doesn’t receive many guests.”

“It’s…my sister,” Ren said. He realized now that he should have given a thought about what to say to her. How could he begin to explain _that_ world to her? It wasn’t as if she could be completely unconvinced of magic, but it was still a story that required some trust.

“Your sister.” Skepticism dripped from her voice, soft and rasping. Ren rather wished he could hear her speak more.

“Well, the daughter of the man who took me in. I suppose that makes her something like my sister. She has a weak constitution, she’s been sleeping for days now. Weeks, really.”

Takemi nodded and passed one hand over her empty cup, which was no longer empty when she plucked it from the table. Ren wasn’t sure if she was trying to intimidate him or if it was simply how she did things when she was alone. “I’m sure you asked a physician for help before you traipsed out here?”

“Three. None of them had anything useful to say. Wait and see, that was all. Wait and see. Meanwhile she hasn’t able to eat or drink all this time. Her father is half out of his mind with worry.”

“So I’m the fourth person you asked,” Takemi said, and held her sleeve up to drink her tea. “Fitting…it’s unusual for someone to sleep for so long. She’s not feverish? Did she eat something she shouldn’t have?”

Ren shook his head. How was he going to explain this? “Futaba- _chan_ …she had to face some difficult parts of her past. It was overwhelming for her. Is there anything you could offer her? I have money. Not much, but—”

“Do you think I have any use for money?”

He fell silent at her reprimand, bracing for a rejection, but Takemi only went to the cabinet and retrieved an inkwell, a brush, and a blank scroll. She swirled the brush in the inkwell—already wet despite her not grinding any ink—and began creating a design on the paper. When it was finished, Takemi pushed it to his side of the table. “Go out to the garden and get me ten of the herbs that have leaves that look like this. Make sure they have three leaves before you pick them, that’s the only way to tell they’re mature. Then I can make something for your sister. Understand?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She walked him back to the door and left him to explore the garden, supervised by the fox, which laid on the engawa and occasionally cracked one eye to check on his progress. Ren walked the rows of plants, carefully studying the leaves poking out of the soil and comparing them to the drawing Takemi had made. He had never been in a medicinal garden, but he had to think that a physician would have everything labeled and organized. A witch, on the other hand…well, there wasn’t much organization to anything. It was as if she had simply tossed out a random assortment of seeds and let everything grow where it fell.

By the time his shadow stretched along the ground, Ren had collected seven of the requested plants. They were so delicate that he had to unearth them slowly, and the fact that they seemed to grow exclusively underneath the cover of larger plants didn’t make his job any quicker. He stood up and looked west, trying to will the sun to stay out a little longer. Perhaps Takemi would give him a candle if he asked nicely, or the fox would bring him one. He was about to start back toward the house when a dim blue bauble of light came flitting through the growing darkness, fluttering closer until Ren could see that it was a butterfly. It landed on his outstretched finger for a moment to rest its wings before taking off again and circling him once.

“Could you help me, then?” Ren asked, trying not to think about how silly it was to talk to a butterfly. He talked to his cat, after all. It hovered in front of him for a moment, then went down the row of plants, crossing over to the next at a spot where he could step over the plants. “I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither…”

It came to rest on the ground beside a large shrub, where its faint glow illuminated a cluster of three needed plants partially sheltered under its leaves. “My thanks,” Ren said, and began carefully extracting them from the earth.

The butterfly led him back to the estate when the sunlight had failed completely, then brought him to the workroom where Takemi had situated herself. The elaborate white kimono was gone, in favor of a lighter black haori and kosode. She glanced up from writing notes and held her palm out so that the butterfly could land and burst into a flash of blue flames. “Did you bring what I asked for? Hand it over.”

Ren took the bundle of plants and laid it gently in her hand, fingers brushing at her cool skin. A shiver worked through him, and Takemi hesitated for a second until she put the plants on her table and put one in a mortar. “You can sit there until I’m done,” she said, nodding toward a cushion in the corner as she grabbed a bone-white pestle. Before starting, she rolled her sleeves back, offering a view of her pale, delicate arms. Ren sat up a bit straighter. “You’ll have to brew this into a weak tea and let the smell rouse your sister. Once she’s awake enough to swallow, sit her up a little and have her drink a few sips at a time until the cup is empty. She’ll have to finish a whole teapot’s worth for it to be properly effective.”

“I’m not a physician, I don’t know how to give someone medicine.”

“That’s why I just told you what to do.”

He shifted in his seat. “The other physicians wouldn’t let us disturb their work, I suppose I thought that you would insist on doing it yourself.”

“Well, you supposed wrong,” Takemi said. She poured the ground-up contents of the mortar onto a clean piece of paper and started the process again with another plant. “I don’t like the city, I don’t intend to go back there. And I’m not a physician. Besides, if they were any good at what they did, you wouldn’t have come all this way to find me. “

Once all the plants were ground into a fine powder, Takemi pinched off a tiny bit to drop into a waiting cup before wrapping the bulk of the medicine into a small, tight packet. She tucked it into her sleeve and stood with the cup. Ren watched her dip her little finger into the adulterated water and draw out a single drop on her fingertip. “One thing I did forget to mention…this will need some energy to impart to her.”

“You want me to drink that?” Ren asked.

“I can put it in your mouth myself, if you’d prefer. Don’t worry, it won’t make you _too_ weak. Probably.”

He looked down at the droplet, now blood-red against her pale skin, and sighed. There was no way he could look Sakura in the eye again if he didn’t do all he could to help Futaba. “If there’s no helping it,” Ren said, and lowered his head toward her hand. He caught the droplet between his lips, letting them brush on Takemi’s finger before drawing back. It was strangely sweet as he swallowed it. “There.”

“Huh, you really did it…nothing’s going to happen to you.” Takemi produced the medicine packet from her sleeve and tucked it into his obi. “I guess that’s not true, it should give you enough energy to get back to the city.”

Her touch seemed to linger even when she pulled away, like a pleasant soreness creeping through his clothes and into his skin underneath. Ren frowned. “Then why—”

“I only wanted to see how dedicated you really were. It wouldn’t do to put my mixtures in the hands of an opportunist.” She rested her chin on one hand. “Hmm.”

“What is it?”

Takemi’s grin showed the merest hint of teeth at the edges. “If you’re willing to test them, I can offer other things. I’m sure the work wouldn’t be too dangerous. Usually. You can come back, as long as you come alone. You know the way know. But bring something for my fox to eat,” she said. “Go on, go back to Kyoto. You might be able to get there before midnight if you hurry.”

Ren bowed and took a moment to consider her offer. It didn’t seem like she would make anything that would harm him—intentionally—and they could use all the help they could get with making their way through that other world. And…he would be lying to himself if the thought of seeing Takemi more didn’t stir a hot flash of excitement in him. “I might take you up on that. Thank you again.”

The fox saw him out of the estate and through the garden, under the arch he had passed through that afternoon. As soon as he did, the air grew warm and heavy, and a look over his shoulder showed nothing like where he’d spent half the day. Ren lingered for a moment as the fox skittered between his feet, touching at the packet of medicine tucked into his belt. “Takemi- _san_ …”


	2. Chapter 2

Tae slid her front door open and sat at the threshold to sip her tea as she looked out over her little pocket of land. Summer had reached its sweltering peak and then yielded to autumn in the forest beyond, but the weather inside was still warm and pleasant, the air remaining still even when winds whipped from one end of the forest to the other. Her fox came trotting through the garden and hopped up on the engawa, only to stop near the door when Tae raised an eyebrow and then shake his paws free of any dirt left from his wanderings. When she was satisfied, Tae nodded and let him sit beside her.

“Back again today?” she asked, and sipped at her tea. The fox whined softly and bumped her shoulder. Tae allowed herself a small smile. He wasn’t bad company. Smart, obedient…not exactly rough on the eyes, either, but she didn’t need him knowing that. “That’s fine.”

Sure enough, the air between her trees out front grew thin and made a short, sharp _pop_ as Amamiya Ren walked in from the forest at the other end of the garden. Tae watched him from over the rim of her cup. He was able to find the place on his own now, which should have given her pause, but instead it brought on a vaguely comforting feeling. Her fox’s tail wagged back and forth on the floor behind him. “Well, go on, I’m sure he has a treat for you.”

He hopped up and jumped from the door, bounding up to Ren and skittering around him as Tae got to her feet, still watching. Ren produced a number of berries from within his haori and offered them up before continuing toward the house. Tae found herself sliding the tip of her finger along the collar of her kosode, edging it back to expose a slight flash of her collarbone.

“Takemi- _san_ ,” Ren said with a bow when he had come up to the house. “Good morning.”

“You must have an amazing surfeit of free time to come wandering through the woods so often, Amamiya- _kun_.”

“No wandering, I assure you. I knew exactly where I wanted to go.”

Tae pretended not to notice his lips quirking into a grin as she sighed good-naturedly and stepped aside to beckon him inside. He slipped off his sandals and put on the slippers she nudged toward the door. “So, are you looking for something to buy today, or did you come to help me? Your reactions provide such useful information.”

“A bit of both. The last formulation you made was very helpful.”

“I can’t imagine what you do with all of this medicine, unless you’re being extraordinarily reckless,” Tae said as she led the way to her office, and the tinge of concern in her voice surprised her. What was she doing, worrying about some city boy? “These tests with you won’t yield anything useful if you show up in a bad way, injured and bleeding. Might I ask what you do with all the medicine you buy?”

She turned when they arrived at her office and saw Ren shrugging. “You might.”

Oh, he was going to play it this way, it seemed. Tae thought to ask further, but he was so charming in his evasion—not to mention at other times as well—that she decided to let the matter drop for now. There was always the option of peeking into his mind, but…perhaps it was better if she didn’t know the details. If it turned out to be worse than her idle imaginings, then sleep might prove difficult to come by. She sat at her worktable and pulled over her mortar. “I suppose you’re entitled to one frustrating secret. But you’re awfully brave, you know. Offering up your body for me to test gods-know-what on it.”

Rather than go and sit on the futon she’d laid out the night before, Ren bent down slightly over her, steel-gray eyes almost piercing her. “I trust you,” he said, and backed away to sit down. Tae turned quickly and took a long breath to compose herself. She was sure that he wouldn’t do anything untoward, he just didn’t seem the type, but…occasionally he did something to remind her that he was a man in her space, in her home. Tae shook her head clear and started grinding the plants she’d picked the night before.

“I know you didn’t care for the taste of hawksbane the last time I used it, but it’s so very versatile in these sorts of mixtures,” she said with a glance over her shoulder. Ren did a poor job of hiding his grimace as he nodded. Tae ground everything into a fine powder, then snapped her fingers over the mortar. A spark of blue fire sprang up in the center, reducing her work to a sticky, sugary substance that clung to the inside of the bowl and required her to coax it off with her little finger. Tae put it all in her palm and dropped it into a waiting teapot that she balanced in her hand. “It shouldn’t be quite so pronounced in this formulation.”

The teapot began to whistle in her palm, and Ren seemed to marvel at such a simple spell even as she poured him a cup of the infused water. He picked it up for a quick sniff, then carefully drank it down. “No, the taste is still…what’s this one for, exactly?”

“It’s a soporific. You started falling asleep as soon as the fumes hit your nose. Ah, ah, don’t panic, lay down.” Tae swept over to his side to take the cup away and put him down on the futon, but he went out faster than she anticipated, and his head fell into her lap before she could move him. “It might have been a bit too strong.”

Ren was deceptively solid given his slender frame, and Tae decided to leave his head there once she’d put him on his side. She flicked at a few messy locks of his dark hair. “This is fine too, I suppose.”

It was more than fine, really. It was easy. Letting him sleep in her lap while she tugged the table over to make notes on his reactions wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest. Tae stroked his cheek as she wrote, resisting the urge to poke around in his head while his defenses were lowered. As long as he stayed warm and she could feel his breath every time he exhaled, then things were all right. She was scribbling down a less demanding formula when he roused and made a small sound as her thumb brushed over the soft, thin skin of his lips.

“What happened?” Ren asked in a grumbling voice as he turned on his side. Tae waited until he realized where he had fallen, until he noticed that his head was in her lap and not on a pillow. He scrambled to sit up, with Tae snickering while he balanced on one hand, slanted toward her, and stumbled over his words. “I—I didn’t mean to—my apologies,” he said, though Tae wondered just how sorry he really was. She wasn’t, she knew that much.

“I think the least I can do for plying you with all my potions is give you somewhere soft to lay your head.”

All of his clumsy contrition vanished, replaced by impassive expression. His lips flattened to a thin line before he said, “Well, thank you, Takemi- _san_ …”

That was the wrong thing to say, she knew, and it was wrong not to pull her hand back when his laid over it. It was too forward, too bold. She was going to give him ideas. Ideas Tae didn’t exactly mind him having, true enough, but this boy was far too nice to draw into her web any further. Still, she couldn’t help entertaining the thought as he leaned in closer to her, tentatively at first, then more surely. Tae couldn’t help entertaining it right up until the last second when she had to turn her head away. “Don’t,” she said softly.

Ren didn’t persist, and drew his hand from hers, but his politeness didn’t mask the ghost of confusion on his face. “I thought…I guess it doesn’t matter. Did you get good notes from that?”

Tae nodded and give him the ingredient list for a modification. “If you bring me these, I can make another, similar formulation for you to use. You might be able to find a use for something that makes someone fall asleep in a few seconds.”

“Oh, my cat’s going to _love_ this,” Ren said under his breath.

“What?”

“Er—nothing. This is all you need?”

She saw him back to the front of her house, then lingered at the door to watch him go into the garden to look for her requests. Ren tucked the ingredient sheet between his knees to tie his sleeves up with a tasuki. Her fox pranced up to him, tail going madly, no doubt hoping for another treat. Would he look so out of place here, Tae wondered. The house was certainly big enough, as was her bed.

Her palm came flying up to smack her forehead. What was she thinking? This was only salt on an old wound, drawing up pain to remind her that she could still feel something. Tae shook her head. Ren didn’t belong here. He only came by because he was taken with her and wanted the things she could provide. The woods were no place for someone like him. They were for people like her, people who couldn’t ever face the world again.

Twisting the knife or not, though, Tae allowed herself a fleeting moment to wonder how it might have been had she not stopped him, had they made some use of that futon. She sighed and let a butterfly drift out of her sleeve to point him toward the plants she needed, but it barely flew out of arm’s reach before stopping and alighting on what appeared to be empty air.

“ _No_ ,” Tae said, but a shimmer like spun silk shone from the sunlight despite her, traveling in a straight line between her and Ren as he walked through the garden. She tried to touch it, but her fingers were as human as his, unlike her butterflies, and they passed through the link as easily as the empty air around it. Tae crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame, stuffing her tongue against the roof of her mouth to try and push back tears.

He was back earlier than usual for his hunts in the garden, poking his head into Tae’s office where she was preparing her workspace until she waved him in. “Hawksbane, shukiba, morning star leaves, and snap peas,” Ren said, motioning to the bundle in his arms.

Tae took it wordlessly and began unpacking the ingredients while he sat at the table behind her, taking the opportunity to watch her roll her sleeves back and lean this way and that as she worked. “How _do_ you make these things?” he asked.

“Practice,” Tae said simply.

For once, Ren didn’t seem to take the hint that she wasn’t interested in talking. “Would you like to meet my friends? I’m sure they’d like to express their gratitude to the person who’s making all these things for us,” Ren said. “I know you said I had to come alone so I couldn’t bring them here, but if you saw fit to come to Kyoto for a night—”

“ _No_. I’m not going back there, not ever.” The leaf Tae was using as a base for one of the bombs uncurled and fell flat with the distraction. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not ever, Amamiya- _kun_.”

Tae heard him shuffling behind her before carefully stepping closer and sitting at her side. “I’m sorry if I’ve given offense,” Ren said. He started to reach for her hand before thinking better of it. Tae kept her head forward, staring down at her desk. “There’s…some reason you refuse to go back there?”

“Yes.”

Ren paused and watched her reshape the morning star leaf to make her concoction. “Which is?”

“I see you think only one of us is entitled to interesting secrets.”

“Mine isn’t making me fight back tears,” he said, and slowly took her chin in his hand to turn her head toward him. It was terribly forward, but Tae found she didn’t mind all that much. Especially when he was right and her eyes were heavy with massed wetness. “May I?”

Tae shrugged. “Do what you like.”

What he liked, as it happened, was resting one hand on her cheek to steady her while pulling up the sleeve of his haori with his other hand and dabbing her eyes dry. “That’s better,” Ren said in a sweet, soft voice. His hand stroked down her cheek before falling away. “There we go.”

“You shouldn’t stain your sleeves on my account, Amamiya- _kun_.”

“It’s hardly a trouble—”

“No, you don’t understand.” Tae shifted back from him and pulled her knees up under her chin. Before she could think better of telling him everything, it all came pouring out. “I was a physician during the worst of the fighting, years ago. They finally gritted their teeth and taught women when it became obvious that the men were dropping like flies on the battlefields. But there were always lulls in the wars, so I would come back to Kyoto and try to help the people who weren’t butchering each other like animals.”

The sunlight filtering in through the walls was beginning to fail, and she flicked to life a few candles on her desk. “There was a girl who was so sick she could barely sit up in her bed. Miwa- _chan_. All she could do was lay there and play with her little paper doll while her body wasted away. I tried to help her, I went to her house every day to try different things. I even missed the departure of the army I was supposed to be tending to. There was a kinship, I suppose…I was a sickly child too, I wanted to do for her the same thing the physicians had done for me when I was her age.”

“It sounds as if you did everything you could,” Ren said. He was a sharp boy, and it wasn’t hard to tell where this story was going. Cold fire licked up through her chest at recounting it.

“Nothing I did seemed to help. I asked my colleagues and my teachers, but no one had any idea what I should have done, except to walk away. Better to spend my time on people who could be saved, they said.” Tae blinked back more tears. “When you become a physician, they tell you to keep your distance from your patients in case they take a turn for the worse. But I was wrapped too tightly in the idea that I had to help her, that if I could just do _something_ she could get up and out of that bed. So I dabbled in less…conventional solutions.”

“Magic,” Ren said.

“Call it what you will. But I must have rushed or miscalculated, I’m not sure. She fell asleep and nothing I did would rouse her. I tried and tried, but in the end all I could do was run away. All I could do was hide here in the woods and hope that the shame would die down eventually. It never did. I say a prayer for her every morning and it won’t ever be enough.”

“Takemi- _san_ …”

In the flicker of the candlelight, the spider’s silk strand shimmering between them seemed even thicker than it had in the afternoon. Tae frowned at it, as if willing it away would do anything. “Let’s be blunt for a moment. Your feelings are flattering, but they’re misplaced. Aren’t there plenty of nice girls in Kyoto?”

“You’re not there,” Ren said. Tae tried to hide the flush on her cheeks.

“Don’t try and act so charming…let me finish these so you won’t be walking through the woods all night.”

Ren sat quietly on the futon while she made his tools, putting them together so that tossing them hard enough would burst them and spread the soporific. She took more time than was strictly necessary, adding in a few extra leaves for good measure, wondering how long she could draw it out before he had to go. Some part of her knew he likely wouldn’t. He would stay there all night and do it gladly, knowing as well as she did that staying in such close proximity was a poor idea. One of them was a butterfly and the other a trapping flower luring it in, though Tae couldn’t tell which of them was which. Better that he think her a monster after that story and keep his distance. It would hurt, but a sting of pain to save them both more grief was a small price to pay.

“Here you go,” she said, bundling the tools in a small bag and placing them on the table between them. Both of them stood up and drifted toward the door, then continued to the entryway in silence. Ren put on his shoes, which left them looking at one another on opposite sides of the threshold. “I hope they work well.”

“Can I—”

“Be safe getting home.”

He took her interruption for what it was, bowed, and started through the garden without another word. Tae pinched the bridge of her nose as he walked under the oak trees until her fox bumped into her side. He sat and whined with a large, expectant expression.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Tae slid the door shut. “It’s better this way.”

⁂

Tae normally rose with the sun, but this seemed as good a day as any to sleep in for a bit. The rest of her morning routine became similarly offset, and she was still in the bath when she heard her fox skittering out of the house and into the garden. Most of the water clinging to her slid away with a snap of her fingers, and she pulled on her kosode to see what all the commotion was. Her heart kicked in her chest despite herself.

As if there was any real question. Ren was at the edge of the garden, bribing her fox with something or other from within his obi before he came up to the edge of the house. He saw that there were still wet strands of hair clinging to her cheeks and neck, and bowed a bit more hastily than usual. “Good morning, Takemi- _san_.”

“It’s rude to call on a lady while she’s in the bath, you know.”

He straightened up, but kept his eyes firmly on the engawa between them. “My apologies, I didn’t think I was any earlier than usual…”

Tae looked up and saw the sun was about halfway to its midday crest. She sighed in feigned exasperation and smiled weakly. “You don’t mind keeping up your dealings with someone like me?” she asked.

“I know the days I spend here are my favorites, dealings or no dealings.”

This was going to hurt, she knew. Someway and someday, it was going to hurt them both. But perhaps the good would outweigh the pain. Tae offered her hand to help Ren up on the engawa. “Then let’s see how I can test you today, Amamiya- _kun_.”


	3. Chapter 3

If it weren’t for the occasional gust of icy wind pressing at the edges of her little patch of land, Tae could almost forget that it was nearly winter outside, where the rest of the world was blanketing down to sleep until spring. It was of little concern to her when she could keep growing her herbs without having to worry about a sudden chill killing everything off, after all. Her fox looked up from watching her plant a row of seeds and toward the gate. Tae tried and failed to keep from smiling. She thought she would have gotten used to his visits by now—there had certainly been enough of them—but the novelty had yet to wear thin.

And neither had the spider silk strand Tae sometimes saw shimmering from the center of her chest, drifting through walls and trees toward Kyoto or wherever he happened to be at the time.

Her fox was skittering up to the entrance as Ren walked through, tail wagging, jumping up and down, tip-tapping on his paws until his persistence was rewarded with a handful of berries. He trotted off with his prize to allow Ren further into the estate. Tae affected an air of nonchalance, pretending to focus on her gardening even as the connection tugged at her chest, and only deigned to look up at him when he bowed. “Takemi- _san_.”

Something tightened in her chest. His voice, usually light and almost carefree, was now tight and strained, weighed down by something she couldn’t see. When Tae studied his face, she saw exhaustion, faded remnants of cuts that might become scars if he picked at them. Such a shame it would be to do that to a pretty face, she thought. His posture was slumped and off-kilter when he straightened up, and the way his clothes hung told her he hadn’t been eating enough. “Amamiya- _kun_ …”

Tae covered the fresh seeds with a sweep of her hand and stood. For once, despite being taller than her, Ren seemed smaller, as if he had been thrown down by the world. The only pleasant part of him was his smile, still warm and genuine. He brushed a little snow from his shoulder. “I’m sorry to call on you again so soon,” Ren said.

“Come with me.”

She clutched the end of his sleeve and brought him to the house, barely letting him stop to slip off his shoes before dragging him to her dining room and planting him at the table. It might have snapped his mind in two if he saw something he couldn’t process, so Tae slipped into the kitchen before pulling a large bowl of rice and vegetables out of thin air for him. “Eat,” she said when she set it down in front of him. “I’ll make some tea.”

“Thank you.”

The restorative Tae slipped into the teapot didn’t have the sweetest taste, but he looked to need it all the same. Ren was a quarter of the way through his meal when she put the teacup in front of him. “You won’t like the taste. Drink it anyway.”

“I don’t remember you ever feeding me before one of your tests,” Ren said. He took a sip and blanched, but drank it down all the same. The grim look on his face would be well worth it when he was fixed up.

“I’m not going to test you today. You look like you might fall over if I breathe too hard in your direction.” Tae meant to sit opposite him at the table, but her legs refused to obey. Instead she sank at his side, where it was all too easy to see the lines carved around his eyes and the minute ways his hands shook around his cup. “Tell me why.”

“It’s…a long story.”

“We have time.”

She had no doubt that his account of the past eight months was a judicious retelling, missing several important parts. Perhaps he thought they would beggar belief. What a thing to imagine. After everything he had seen here, all the things she could do, to imagine she would be skeptical was near to madness. Still, Tae didn’t interrupt.

“I think,” Ren was saying, his hands steadying as he spoke, “that the conspiracy holding the shogunate in its grasp will crumble if we’re able to defeat this last man. Even if we don’t win, if we can do enough damage, they shouldn’t be able to recover. So there’s nothing to do but…pour out everything we have left. It’s all we can do to try and protect everyone else.”

He took another sip of his tea and smiled. “So I came here today to buy what I could. And to tell you that, in the event that I don’t come around anymore, it’s not because I lost interest.”

Ren’s smile faltered, quickly hidden behind the teacup. A wet heat pressed at the space between Tae’s eyes. How could he say something like that so casually? As if he were doing no more than discussing the weather? She shook her head, which made Ren arch an eyebrow. “Don’t,” she said.

“Takemi- _san_?”

“Don’t do this. Don’t throw yourself into the fire for people who scorn you. What have they done to earn your sacrifice?” Tae asked, leaning forward, closer to him. “You’ve told me how they look at you. The things they whisper about you. For people like that—how could you throw your life away? How could you throw _me_ away?”

She stopped suddenly, wondering what spell she could call up to snatch the words from the air. But they were already fluttering out of her grasp, resting their soft wings on Ren’s ears, giving voice to a truth they both knew and had politely left unsaid until now. Tae wondered if she might die of embarrassment. Her estate’s eternal summer was too hot now, burning like a scorch across her face. And _his_ face…she couldn’t bear to look at it. Nor could she actually do so, with her tears blurring everything into a wet smudge. “Stay,” Tae said, despising the crack in her voice as she stared down at her lap. “Stay here. Stay with me. No conspiracies, no wars to fight. Just me and my fox.”

They both laughed at that, as they both knew her pleas were fruitless. Too much honor in him, too much he was ready to give to people who didn’t deserve it. “Your fox is a bad conversationalist,” he said, and his voice sounded like it was shaking as much as hers. It was a bad joke, meant to try and draw them back to the present reality. “I can’t leave my friends to face this alone. They’ve fought and bled and sacrificed as much as me. More, maybe. I have to see it through.”

“So now you’ve come to say goodbye.”

Through her tears, Tae saw his hand reaching for her chin. She didn’t resist as he lifted her head and brought her gaze level with his. There was so much pain in his smile that she wanted to wipe it clear and kiss a better one in its place. Instead she watched him, blinking out her tears until they rolled down her cheeks and there was nothing to obscure his terribly pretty face.

“I came here because I wanted to see you,” Ren said softly, moving his hand to sweep away a few tears as they fell. “If you’ll allow me a moment’s selfishness, I came here because this is my only respite from worrisome thoughts. Because the calmness I feel when I see you was the only way I could keep from losing my nerve. I’m not doing this for all the people who talk behind my back, I’m doing this for my friends, and for you, and the world you deserve to live in.”

Tae nodded. It was still too much to meet his eyes, leaving her to look at Ren’s lips. He had pressed them into a thin line, a crime against their usual perfect shape. “Besides, would you really make that offer if you thought I was the kind of man to abandon everything to take you up on it?” he asked with a crooked smile.

“You’re real, aren’t you?”

His brow furrowed. “Of course I am. Why would you say that?”

To speak out her fear, that he was some manifested bundle of her loneliness magicked into being by her mind as isolation drove her mad, would be to give it too much power. Tae only shook her head and moved away from his hand, still at her cheek. Ren drew it back. He reached into his haori after a moment. “I have something for you.”

A spark of curiosity flared in Tae. The only gifts he ever brought were for her fox, and despite the price he paid for them, she considered the medicines she always sent him off with to be gifts. When Ren drew his hand out, she cocked her head and watched him turn his palm up. Had her heart not already cracked, it would have then.

It was a little girl’s paper doll, weathered at the edges by years of love and patched in several places. Tae took it from him and turned it over in her hands, thumbing at the fringes of the doll’s dress. “This…”

“My friends and I made some inquiries,” Ren said. “Whatever you did for Miwa- _chan_ was more effective than you thought, she was bounding with energy when I met her. I told her I knew the physician who had helped her when she was young. She asked me to give you this. A memento, I suppose.”

Tae nodded, not trusting herself to speak yet. Her throat burned too much to form words anyway. She carefully set the doll down on her table and shifted forward, leaning slowly into Ren at first, then falling against him and throwing her arms around his shoulders. Another blistering wave of tears rocked her, but she had no thought to apologize for staining his clothes as she buried her face into the crook of his shoulder. Ren’s hands pressed to her back, drawing her closer. He was stronger than she gave him credit for. “Thank you,” she finally said, mumbling into the fabric of his haori. “Thank you, thank you…”

Ren held her tighter. They stayed there like that for a long time, the two of them, holding and resting against one another. Tae worried for a stretch that she might fall asleep. She didn’t. Not because she couldn’t use it after the battering of hearing how Ren intended to put his neck on the line for the rest of the empire, but because he was here, and _real_ , so present that his half of the strand connecting them nearly glowed with hot, thrumming strength. “Ren,” Tae said, forgoing any formality. She drew his hands back from his sides and planted them firmly on his collarbone. His look was gentle, expectant. Something in it told her she could have asked him for the moon and he would have started fashioning a rope. The request on her mind was simpler, though. “Kiss me.”

The way his body stiffened under her hands told Tae he was only too happy to obey, but he held back even as his gaze drifted down to her lips. “I remember the last time I tried to kiss you.” Ren’s hand fastened on the small of her back, holding her in place at first, then drawing her in again. Tae needed no real encouragement, and he stopped her an agonizingly short distance from him. The strand was so bright it could burst, invisible to him but still shining in the cool gray of his eyes. “You told me to stop, as I recall.”

“I’m not stopping you now.”

“No.” Ren was so close now that Tae could _feel_ him even when she closed her eyes and tilted her head, the soft insistence of his presence, the brightness he allowed her darkness to surround and subsume. The strand between them burst, scattering countless lengths of silk that wrapped them together in their own private web. “No, you’re not stopping me now.”

His lips were warm and tasted faintly of salt, pressing to hers with all manner of restrained need. Tae’s nails scraped over his collarbone in her haste. Her elbow crashed into the table beside them, and Ren had the nerve to laugh under his breath when they broke for air. Desire shivered through her, as constant as her heartbeat. “I’d be nicer if I were you,” she said as she clambered into his lap, deliberately brushing against the line of his cock to make him squirm. “Witches can make for dangerous bedmates. Lethal, even.”

Ren dipped to kiss her neck, gently dragging the soft skin there between his teeth. “I can think of worse ways to die.”

“Can you…close your eyes, keep them that way.”

The air grew heavy and taut around them, pushing down from all directions, before it snapped back and they were on her bed, away from anything and everything. Ren looked around, marveling in the simple spell, before his attention turned back to her. He dove back in, lavishing her throat while his hands roamed, staying near her hips until Tae brought them higher. Her back arched toward him when he cupped her breasts, sending jolts up and down her spine. She had a thought to let him explore as he liked, but the insistent tug of want coursing up and down her body couldn’t stand waiting. “We’re overdressed,” Tae said, and thumbed at her collar.

He was so delightfully quick to obey. Ren’s hands shook as he untied the knot holding her haori closed, then slowly slipped it from her shoulders when the look in his eyes told her all he wanted to do was rip it away as quickly as he could. Oh, the fun she could have with him, given a little more time…Tae returned the favor when he was done, pushing his clothes away in between kisses until she had stripped him to the waist. She frowned a little at all the remnants of damage on his chest and arms, until he started to turn away in embarrassment. “I can see why you needed all that medicine,” she murmured, and kissed a particularly prominent scar that webbed around his left shoulder. Ren flinched at the feeling. “Shh, shh. You’re safe now, keep going.”

Tae put his hand on the sash keeping her kosode closed. It fell away without issue, as did the rest. The warmth of his lap vanished as Tae shifted back to finish disrobing, allowing him to do the same. It felt somehow different with their clothes cast away, even though he surely had no more illusions about where this was going than she did. Not that she didn’t like what she saw, though. And judging by the unqualified longing written on his face, neither did he. Tae leaned on one hand and brought the other down her side, keeping his gaze fixed exactly where she wanted it. “Well?” Her legs eased slowly apart, and Ren bit his lip. “Handsome boy like you must know what to do now, no?”

His face colored a deep red, and Tae couldn’t help letting a hint of teeth flash in her grin. A blank slate to mark as she liked? Maybe he wasn’t real after all. She hooked her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, into a quick kiss. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you,” Tae said, and pulled him with her until she was on her back and he was propped up on his elbows above her. She swept up for a brief moment to nibble at his ear. “Use that smart mouth of yours first…”

Ren at least knew a little. His kisses trailed here and there, from the hollow of her throat to the small swells of her breasts to the lines of her stomach, testing with his lips and teeth to gauge Tae’s reactions by her breathing or the way she moved under him. Her hand wound into his hair for more direct feedback, guiding his attentions to the crests of her hips before easing him further down. Ren swallowed and started to dip down, stopping only when Tae tugged on his hair. “Gentle,” she warned, then let him continue.

The first slide of his tongue over her sex drew out a moan, which he took as more than welcome invitation. His hands wrapped around her thighs and dug in to fix her in place, as if there were anywhere she would rather be. Another flick. Another moan, another twist on the coil of arousal winding through her, growing just a little tighter. Tae whimpered, tightened her hand in his hair, but he refused to rest and changed direction. Such youthful vigor. It made her back arch and draw stiff to offer him a better angle.

“Ren,” she said shakily, tapping at the crown of his head. He stopped, looking up as if expecting reprimand, but she had no such plans. Tae stroked his cheek, drawing her thumb close to the shine of arousal around his lips. “I’m going to do something that might feel strange at first, but…trust me, all right?”

He held still as she put her fingers on his temples. The web around them reasserted itself briefly as Tae plucked at a few of the threads to weave the bridge she wanted, and then—his surprise rang out in her mind along with the swirl of his lust, her fingers felt the way he was pressing on her legs, and every little jolt of pleasure he got from the slow grind of his cock against the sheets suffused through her whole body for lack of a better place to settle. Ren squeezed experimentally at one thigh, then looked back at his own in shock. “I—”

“Now you know exactly how good everything you’re doing to me feels.”

Ren looked at her, letting the affection bounce between them over and over, before getting back to work. His tongue lashed and ravaged, tearing down what small resistances she was able to muster. With such immediate knowledge of how he was affecting her, Tae was surprised she could hold back at all. He wound her tighter and tighter, punishing all her favorite spots with abandon, until finally he had crumbled every wall she’d ever built. The arch in her back failed, dropping her to the sheets as pleasure wracked her body. Everything spilled over to Ren as well, flooding him, overwhelming until he was splayed out just as she was, trying to make sense of the ecstasy his body hadn’t produced but was writhing under all the same. Tae pulled him closer when she could move again, sitting up so she could rest his head in her lap, where it belonged. His chest was slicked with sweat, breath beating an unsteady rhythm as he came down from the strange sensation of another’s climax. Tae carefully wiped his mouth clean and found her own tongue somewhat sore. “I think I’ve ruined you for other women,” she said softly, carding her fingers through his hair.

“You did that months ago…”

Tae started, heart lurching in her chest as she recognized the warm feeling wrapping around her. Its source, either him or her, was impossible to pin down exactly, but it drifted too freely in the haze between them to have only come from one or the other. Tae laughed under her breath and forced her gaze away from him. “Only stupid boys fall in love with witches, don’t you know?”

“Then call me a fool.” Ren touched her hip, sliding his thumb over the skin there. The look in his eyes was simultaneously too intense to meet and too arresting to ignore. “Call me stupid, call me whatever you like. As long as I can call you mine, Tae.”

He added her name slowly, carefully, like some secret prayer meant to be whispered in the depths of a shrine. What had she done to his mind for all these months? Tae shook her head, trying to ignore the intoxicating scent of his arousal permeating her space. It was little use. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I know enough,” Ren began, making her chest grow tight, “to know that there have to be a great many things I don’t know about you. But I also know that none of it could change how I feel about you.”

“Oh, then you _are_ a fool. But it seems you’re my fool now, there’s no helping that. And I’m nothing if not responsible for my things. Stay still.”

Ren obliged when she lifted him off her lap and moved down the bed, until she could swing one leg over his hips and straddle him. “You won’t stay,” Tae said. She planted her hands on his chest and rolled her hips forward, moving along the length of his cock. Ren shivered, and without an analogous seat in her body the feeling ran through her from head to toe. “I can respect that. You were right when you said I wouldn’t be so interested if you were the kind of man who could be lured away from his ideals.” She slid back, and his hands flew to her legs, digging in to try and guide her home. He had to know better by now, though. Her voice was unsteady as she continued, fumbling with his shaft to try and line him up. “But I—I want you to know exactly why you _need_ to come back.”

His first press into her almost undid both of them. Tae’s whole body tingled with the sensation, and the heady stretch of fullness had to be taking its toll on him as well. She sank further, lips parting for a long, broken moan, ready to lose her mind by the time she had taken him to the hilt. Ren tossed his head back, legs flexing underneath her, doing anything he could to keep from whittling away his stamina. Tae allowed him a moment’s respite before leaning down over him, smirking at the way he panted with the effort of keeping still while she drew the sweat from his throat between her lips. The tip of her tongue slid along his ear, and she felt him tremble under her. “I’m not some girl you can buy for the night, you have to do some of the moving, too,” she said, whispering into his ear.

That was all it took. Ren’s hips snapped upward, nearly throwing her off-balance and sending them into a cascade of synchronous pleasure. For a few moments he seemed to be finding a rhythm, only to pull back in an effort to prolong it. He was still new to this, Tae couldn’t hold his inexperience against him, but she could certainly have a little fun.

“Because if _I’m_ leading things, well…you’re going to earn it.”

She locked her feet over his thighs to totally control their pace and started where he had left off, rocking her hips back and forth until she could feel his body tightening under her, when she would slow almost to a stop, pressing down to keep him on the edge. Only once his excitement began to subside would she start again, slowly then quickly, until he was shuddering underneath her, impossibly overloaded with sensation and pushing the same over to her. Each time she wound him up it would take longer and longer to recover, with shorter stretches in between starting again and pulling back. By the end they were both gasping, struggling for the slightest movements without tipping themselves over, until it was finally too much. “ _Tae_ ,” he gasped out beneath her, and she fell upon him, rutting against him and crashing her lips to his in one last bruising, claiming kiss.

The force of his climax and the rushing warmth that followed sent her spiraling, ripping the seams of her remaining composure. Tae threw her head back and screamed out her pleasure, making the whole house tremble with her wavering control. Everything passed back and forth between them over and over, strong enough to go multiple times before fading into relaxed oblivion.

Slowly, with the last of her strength, Tae dropped to Ren’s side, turning so she could curl into him. Ren looked at her with stars in his eyes. Even without having a window into him, the refrain of his most dominant thought would have been all too obvious: _I love you. I love you. I love you._

_I love you, too._

Tae reached for his temple and pressed her fingers there, severing the bridge so that the threads could return to binding them. Suddenly she was alone with her pleasure, sweetly sore and verging on exhaustion. Ren looked around, shocked by the loss until Tae laid her hand on his chest. “You could have kept that going,” he said.

“Neither of us would ever get anything done. We’d do nothing but stay in here, trading pleasure until we wasted away.” Tae stretched out and tangled her legs with his. She drew a circle with one finger on his stomach. “I don’t know whether I want to ask you to stay tonight or send you back to your friends to make your plans.”

Ren reached over, planted a hand on her back, and pulled her closer. “You don’t have to ask.”

⁂

Dawn came, too soon. The sun shone as if it were any other day, almost mocking in its regularity. Tae groaned and tried to move, only to find that she was terribly sore, wrung dry by all of their exertion. And still lingering there, the self-satisfied cause of it all.

Ren sat at the foot of her bed, already dressed, scratching her fox’s ears until she nudged him with her foot. He turned back at once, gaze laying hungrily on her. “Good morning.”

“Good, is it…”

Tae sat up and stretched, then drifted forward on her knees to fall onto his back. “I’m glad you’re still here,” she said.

“I couldn’t leave before you woke up.”

“No, I would have cursed you into next month,” Tae said, and nipped at his ear. She stood on unsteady legs and gathered up some clothes. His eyes were on her as she dressed, shameless, and she felt no burn around her ears as she did. “Come on. I have something for you.”

Even though she had no doubt that Ren would keep close behind her, Tae still reached back to clasp his hand all the way to her office. He sat politely at the table while she gathered together some supplies, the various poultices and restoratives she made to pass the time on the days when he didn’t visit, and bound them all in a cloth that she tied with a tight knot. Tae pushed it across the table at him. “Here. For whatever harebrained thing I know I have no hope of talking you out of.”

“Thank you.” Ren put his hand on the package, then paused. “Ah—I didn’t pay you for these. Not goods or services.”

She waited to see if he would make some wry comment about rendering ‘services’ the night before, but it seemed that he had enough good sense to refrain. Tae nodded, then shrugged. “You’ll come back later to pay me. Do you understand? You have to _come back_ ,” she said, taking pains to enunciate each word. Ren offered a small, weak smile in the face of her grave tone. “I won’t forgive you if you skip out on your bill like some deadbeat.”

“Duly noted. If there’s anyone’s wrath I want to avoid…”

Tae walked with him as far as the gate back to the rest of the forest, taking slow, short steps in a futile attempt to prolong his presence there. So close to the barrier, winter tried breaking through, with snow piling up outside. When another step would take him away, Tae clung to his arm, choking back one last vain appeal to keep him there. Ren turned to her in the span of a breath and almost crushed her in his arms, holding so tight that it was a struggle to get her own arms up and return his embrace. “Come back,” she whispered.

“I will.”

The sun had shifted in place by the time they let each other go, and then Tae realized that arms were as sore as the rest of her. Ren grinned and held her cheeks in his hands to kiss the crown of her head, then turned slowly and departed, slipping through the gate to uncertainty. Her barrier held, preserving the summer within her estate, but suddenly it felt very cold.

⁂

Three days was hardly the longest stretch of time she’d ever waited for something, but there would have been no convincing her of that now, Tae thought.

Her herbs sat unharvested on their bushes and stalks, her dirty clothes remained piled up and unwashed. None of that mattered. _How_ could any of that matter? She had no focus for that, at any rate. All she could do was pet her fox when he nuzzled at her and sit on the engawa, holding Miwa’s paper doll as she watched, waiting.

Three days was too long to have her heart in her throat.

She almost didn’t trust the shimmering disturbance at the entrance to her estate, not after the last time when it had been nothing more than a deer foraging outside. But there was no accounting for hope, no matter how swiftly it could crush her. Tae set the doll down before she could crumple it in her hands and waited, shaking, burning with anticipation.

He was limping a little when he walked in, but it was Ren, it was _him_ , flesh and blood and _here_ , alive. Tae pushed herself forward, not a care for the sandals she left behind, to run at him. Ren straightened up and tried to match her speed, but the bandages on his face and peeking out from beneath his clothes dictated otherwise. She stopped herself from jumping into his arms, but only just. He still looked as if he would catch her, pain be damned. Tae had to settle for clasping his face and pulling him down into the deepest kiss she could muster to try and calm her madding heart.

She broke away only because she could feel the way he was shaking to maintain the awkward position. Ren smiled with a split lip. “Told you I’d come back,” he said, one hand pressing at his side. Ren cocked his head. “I look so bad that it’s making you cry, huh?”

Was she crying? Tae wiped her eyes and put her hands lightly on his chest, only to draw them back when he winced. She settled for taking his hand and holding it against her face. Ren stroked her cheek. “You do look like a demon’s worked you over, I won’t lie.”

“That’s not too far off from the truth, really…but I was hoping you could help with that.”

“Stupid boy,” Tae said through another sting of tears, and took his hand to lead him home.


End file.
